I don’t blame Dan Sansky for hanging up. If I were him, I wouldn’t talk to me. I found Sansky’s cellphone number on his employment application at the County of Lackawanna Transit System (COLTS), where he is maintenance supervisor.
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DICKSON CITY — State Attorney General Josh Shapiro on Saturday, recalling the discrimination Irish immigrants faced when they came to the United States, blasted the prejudice that exists today.
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Car insurance rates are at an all-time high nationwide and rates are rising fast in the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre/Hazleton area, according to a recent study by The Zebra, a car insurance comparison marketplace.
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BY TERRIE MORGAN-BESECKER
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Published: December 17, 2017

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Determined to attack the opioid crisis, Pennsylvania prosecutors filed a record number of charges this year against those who supplied drugs that caused fatal overdoses. However, there is growing concern prosecutors are losing sight of the law’s intent and are locking up addicts, instead of the kingpins it was designed to target, a Sunday Times investigation found.

As of Sept. 30, 126 cases statewide were filed on drug delivery resulting in death charges — a first-degree felony that carries a maximum prison sentence up to 40 years, according to data obtained from the Administrative Office of Pennsylvania Courts.

The figure reflects a dramatic increase in prosecutions. In 2011, just four people were charged statewide, all from Philadelphia. The figures increased to 18 in 2012, before dropping slightly to 14 in 2013. It continued to rise to 38 in 2014, 41 in 2015 and 76 last year.

The surge in prosecutions is in part because altered the drug delivery resulting in death law so prosecutors no longer need to prove a dealer intended to kill the victim. State lawmakers envisioned the change in the law would close a loophole that allowed large scale pushers to escape culpability for the overdose deaths decimating communities statewide.

Last year, at least 4,884 people died of drug overdoses in Pennsylvania, according to the . That is up 39 percent, from 3,505 deaths in 2015.

However, many defense attorneys say authorities, desperate to halt the opioid epidemic, are going about it in the wrong way by charging low-level dealers — many of whom are addicts sharing or selling drugs to support their own habits.

“There is a practical difference between someone who is a hardened drug dealer and someone who is passing drugs out to support their own habit,” said Scranton defense attorney Curt Parkins. “The law doesn’t differentiate between those types of situations. If you do drugs with a friend and something awful happens, you are treated the same way as someone dealing 1,000 times.”

Several county district attorneys said their primary target is high-level suppliers. However, that does not mean addicts will not be held responsible, they said.

“Delivering a drug is like delivering a loaded gun,” said Dauphin County District Attorney Ed Marsico, who has been one of the most aggressive in filing the charge. “There are consequences. ... Even if you and I are buddies, if I give you a drug, I’m liable if you die. Nobody should go into this thinking they are immune from prosecution.”

Marsico is among several district attorneys who now investigate fatal overdoses as homicides instead of accidental deaths.

“In the past, there was hardly any attention to figuring out who was involved in the death,” said York County Coroner Pamela Gay, whose county is the most aggressive in pursuing cases. “The mentality was a junkie is a junkie is a junkie.”

Despite the increased prosecutions, charges still are filed in only a fraction of cases, and some counties are more aggressive in pursuing charges than others, the newspaper’s investigation found.

From 2011 to 2016, at least 12,861 people died of drug overdoses statewide, according to the Pennsylvania Coroners Association. Yet, as of Sept. 30, just 317 cases of drug delivery resulting in death were filed since 2011, records show.

York County has been the most aggressive in pursuing cases, with 35 cases filed from 2011 through Sept. 30, followed by Dauphin, 23 each, Lancaster and Franklin, 22 each, Cumberland, 20, Westmoreland, 15, Bucks and Somerset, 13 each, and Lebanon, 12.

District attorneys in 18 of the state’s 67 counties, including Pike and Wyoming, did not file any drug delivery resulting in death charges. In Lackawanna County, the district attorney’s office filed five cases; Luzerne County, three cases were filed; and in Wayne and Susquehanna counties, one case each was filed.

Statewide, Attorney General Josh Shapiro is taking an aggressive approach. His office charged 10 people so far this year.

“You can’t underestimate or put into words the magnitude of this problem,” Shapiro said, noting that on average, 13 people die daily from a drug overdose. “If you are peddling this poison in our communities and someone dies from it, you are going to be charged to the fullest extent of the law.”

Lackawanna County’s incoming district attorney, Mark Powell, said the cases will be a top priority of his administration.

“Clearly we have to deliver a stronger message,” Powell said. “Commercial drug dealers are going to be hit much harder than they ever were before.”

“Unfortunately, our best witness is deceased,” Scanlon said. “They can’t tell us how they got the drugs. That’s a big impediment.”

Even if police can determine who supplied the drug, they have to prove it caused the person’s death.

“Heroin users have such an addiction when we do the autopsy, there are many substances,” Scanlon said. “They could literally be a walking pharmacy. Unless you know the order they were taken, it’s hard to have an expert say, ‘this is the drug that killed them.’”

Scanlon said he also carefully considers cases before deciding whether or not to file charges.

“We take it extremely seriously, but you have to understand, there are many cases we have to walk away from because it’s the right thing to do,” he said. “You don’t ever want to charge someone improperly. You label someone a killer. No matter what happens down the road, people remember them as an accused killer.”

State criminal investigators have begun looking into how a mechanic received unauthorized health insurance from the Scranton School District for 12 years. Superintendent Alexis Kirijan, Ed.D., said an investigator from the state police and another from th
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SCRANTON — City police charged a man with choking his girlfriend and bouncing her head off a kitchen counter Saturday afternoon. Jalil Bahar-Kubadidi, 18, of 602 Grace St., is charged with assaulting Alisha Ocasio, who suffered bruises over her left eye a
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SCRANTON — A West Abington Twp. supervisor will serve out his sentence for exposing himself to three girls in the Lackawanna County Prison. Supervisor David P. Button Sr. wanted Judge Margaret Bisignani Moyle to change his jail sentence to home confinemen
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Changes implemented earlier this month by the state Department of Auditor General ensure all school district audits and reviews examine school safety measures and provide findings to law enforcement officials.
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